Taming Agent Goode
by kaxotie
Summary: Zach and Cammie have been the top competing agents in the CIA ever since they first met while training. Now that Zach has been assigned to be Cammie's security detail after discovering that the Circle of Cavan has been tracking her, will they be able to overcome their differences to infiltrate the CoC? Or will their past romantic history and undeniable chemistry get in the way?
1. The Mission Begins

"Zachary Goode," a gravelly voice began in a Russian accent, "Code name Duchess."

Zach raised his head and noticed a muscular man in a green Russian military uniform standing in front of him. Zach, meanwhile, stood with his hands chained to a damp brick wall of a small dark room, lit only by one bare lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. The men were the only things in the room aside from a stool with a large battery sitting on it. The Russian man ashed his cigar and started pacing the room as he continued talking.

"Known from Berlin to Bangkok as the world's most dangerous assassin. So for us, this is how you say a 'good catch.' But not so good for you, Mr. Goode... Because you have information that I want," the man threatened.

He dropped his cigar to the ground and crushed it under the sole of his boot. He walked over to the stool and picked up the battery clamps, touching the two together to send sparks raining to the floor. "And this may sound cliche, but we have ways of making you talk."

Zach raised one eyebrow at the man. "What, with your little go-kart battery?" he mocked.

"Golf cart," the Russian corrected, pointing a battery clamp at Zach's bare chest.

"Whatever. And would you just pick an accent and stick with it?" Zach continued berating the man, who had sloppily moved from a Russian accent to Latvian to Kazakistan throughout their conversation.

"Listen here you little- ," the 'Russian' man yelled at Zach, but was cut off.

"Son of a _bitch_!" a woman's voice exclaimed, and fluorescent lights were suddenly switched on in the little room. A window was now visible on the other side of the simulation room, outside of which Cammie Morgan was standing with her arms crossed and glaring angrily at Zach.

"What is the point of these simulations if you don't take them seriously?" Cammie demanded through the glass window.

"Krenshaw's arousal?" Zach teased her with a smirk. The CIA simulations expert, Krenshaw, glared at Zach through narrowed eyes. "Besides, I can't take these things seriously between _his_ lame accent and go-kart battery."

"Golf cart!" Krenshaw insisted.

"Shut up," Zach continued, "And speaking of lame, my code name is-"

"Was chosen at random by the CIA computer, same as everybody else," Cammie interrupted.

"Random? You conveniently got to keep your nickname from the Academy. What was it again, iguana? Salamander?"

"Chameleon," Cammie corrected him. She pressed a button on the control pad in front of her, releasing Zach's hands from the chains in the simulation room. "But just a hint, attitude goes a long way with headquarters. Maybe avoid getting 'unsatisfactory' performance reports on these simulations and they can pull some favors for you."

"'Unsatisfactory'?" Zach repeated sarcastically as he walked through the sliding door from the simulation room into the control room, where Cammie was. He picked up his plain white tshirt from the chair next to her and pulled it over his head, covering his scarred chest. "Oh come on, at worst that was 'needs improvement'."

"Jesus, Zach, do you think this is a game?" Cammie asked, still slightly angry. She and Zach started walking down the hallway of the CIA building towards the elevator, their training simulations clearly over for the day.

"No, I think Jenga is a game, and-"

"What if Krenshaw was a real KGB? These simulations are supposed to prepare us for real life situations we may encounter on our missions!" Cammie pressed the button for the elevator and crossed her arms, looking at Zach while waiting for his answer. He smirked and avoided checking out how good her chest looked when she crossed her arms like that.

"I've been prepared from the Academy and the hundred-something CIA missions I've been on. I obviously know how to act in a situation like that, and it's ridiculous that the CIA makes us _pretend_ we're really in danger like we're in some liberal arts college drama class," Zach explained, stepping into the elevator as the doors opened. Cammie followed him but rolled her eyes.

"Look, it's been a while since the last time we were assigned on a mission together so I'm just making sure you're on top of your game."

Zach huffed in shock and retorted, "On top of my game? I'm the best assassin in all the CIA."

"And clearly the most humble as well," Cammie replied sarcastically. "But the fact remains that you have gone rogue for every single mission you've been assigned to this past year and I know you do it on purpose. You-"

"I do not!" Zach interrupted. "Unpredictable situations come up so I can no longer follow instructions from headquarters and I have to improvise."

"You and I both know that's not true. Your missions are still successful somehow, thank goodness, but let me make one thing perfectly clear," Cammie threatened, stepping closer to Zach and poking him in his muscular chest. "This coming mission we will follow CIA protocol one hundred percent of the way through, no deviations."

"So if you're saying you want this mission to go the exact same as the last, does that mean you want to work out some fuck buddy deal like last time?" Zach teased with his green eyes twinkling mischievously, but Cammie immediately slapped him across the face the second the question left his mouth.

"Ow!"

"I want you to listen to me," Cammie threatened through gritted teeth. She hadn't meant to lose her temper like that, but for some reason Zachary Goode just knew the exact buttons to push to get her to react.

"If you want me to listen to you, you'll need to unperforate my eardrum first," Zach mocked, rubbing the side of his face that was now beginning to turn red from the slap. The elevator doors opened as they reached the floor with the suites for the agents to temporarily stay in until their missions started.

"Well un...head out of your ass!" Cammie shouted, not quite knowing how to reply to him. She stomped out of the elevator and down the hall to her room while Zach called after her.

"Clever. See you bright and early, Gallagher girl."

Cammie pressed her finger against the fingerprint scanner, gaining herself access to her room. She went in and flopped onto her bed with a heavy sigh. She knew that one day she would have to work with her somewhat-of-an-ex-boyfriend again, seeing as they were coworkers, but she had been dreading the day it came. Cammie sat up on her bed, too riled up to rest. That was just the effect that Zach always seemed to have on her.

She decided a hot shower would clear her mind, so she stripped off her work uniform, which consisted of a black spandex suit, and headed into the bathroom. Cammie flung back the shower curtain and reached to turn on the water, but her hand froze midair. A blinking red light was flashing at her from the wall of the shower. A miniature spy cam.

"ZAAAAAAACH!"


	2. Moscow

Cammie slammed her door shut and sped walked down the hallway to the elevator, where Zach was waiting and holding the door open for her. "Two minutes late," he reported as she finally joined him. He let the doors slide shut and they began ascending to the top floor. "You know they hate it when people are late to their mission debriefing."

" _I'm_ sorry, but I had to search my bathroom again this morning to make sure _somebody_ hadn't hid another spy cam during the night," Cammie shot back. "Which, by the way, was very unprofessional of you."

"Oh come on, it was just a joke. If I had actually wanted to spy on you then I wouldn't have hid it out in the open like that. It's just so easy to get under your skin, Gallagher girl," Zach teased with a wink. Cammie pressed her lips together, deciding she wouldn't press him on the subject until he continued, "Besides, it's nothing that I haven't seen before."

Cammie smacked him in the arm just as the elevator came to a halt. "Ow!"

The doors opened to the main offices of the CIA building. They entered the large conference room, which consisted of a long wooden table with four of their superiors sitting on one end. Cammie and Zach took their seats at the opposing end of the table, with their mission coordinator standing at the head.

"Nice of you two to finally join us," their mission coordinator, Mallory Black, began. She pressed a button on a remote, which raised a panel in the wall to reveal a large computer screen. "Hopefully this won't be a common occurrence."

"Definitely not," said Cammie at the same time Zach said, "No, Ma'am."

"Wonderful," Agent Black replied in an unimpressed tone. She turned to face the screen, which was currently displaying a map of Russia. "Now, as you may or may not already know, we have had a breach in security due to a mole in our agency who turned out to be KGB Agent Nikolai Bukavitsky."

Cammie furrowed her eyebrows as she watched the screen scroll through Agent Bukavitsky's profile, trying to ignore Zach nodding his head next to her. Clearly Zach had heard about this incident already, unbeknownst to Cammie, but by now she was used to the old students from Blackthorne Academy knowing more information than her and her colleagues from Gallagher. For some reason, agents from Blackthorne started out with higher clearance levels in the CIA than the agents from Gallagher. Cammie had attempted to look into Blackthorne's training program before, but found no specific information, much to her avail.

"Unfortunately for the CIA, this breach has led to the access of our encrypted files containing our cover list with the real identity of all past and current field agents," Agent Black continued. Cammie did a small gasp and Zach let out a barely audible "fuck" under his breath.

"We have traced the signal of the breach to the geographic coordinates 55.75171° N, 37.61802° E, otherwise known as Moscow, Russia," Agent Black motioned towards the screen, which zoomed in on the coordinates to show the KGB headquarters. "However, we are unsure which of the many computers in their headquarters is currently downloading our files as we speak."

"So how can we stop it?" Cammie asked.

"With this." Agent Black slid a small flash drive across the table, which Zach picked up and placed inside his suit pocket. Agent Black explained, "That device contains a virus which should completely shut down their system, allowing us to recover our files before they are downloaded and decrypted."

Agent Black pressed another button on her remote, turning off the screen and sliding the panel over it. She announced, "Your mission is to infiltrate KGB headquarters, plug the device into any one of their computers, and exit the building without triggering any alarms. The weaponry and other materials you should need for your mission are available in the equipment warehouse, and the plane for Moscow leaves in 2 hours. Good luck, agents."

Cammie and Zach respectfully nodded, standing up and leaving the conference room to retrieve their gadgets from the warehouse. "I can't believe the CIA had a mole," Cammie breathed in shock, not over the fact that once the KGB downloaded the file and decrypted it (which could be at any time) the cover of all CIA field agents would be blown.

"It happens more than you think," Zach replied seriously for once. The two stepped into the elevator, heading to the equipment warehouse. "But it's not very often that they infiltrate the CIA _successfully_ like this."

"If this mission doesn't work out, it'll be all our fault that covers are blown. Thousands of lives would be put to risk!" Cammie exclaimed. She knew that if she and Zach were being paired up together that this mission must be important, but nothing could have prepared her for this. The gravity of the situation was just now hitting her. Zach nodded solemnly at her, sensing Cammie's uneasiness.

The elevator doors opened, and Zach laid a comforting hand on Cammie's back to lead her out of the elevator into the warehouse lobby. "Headquarters chose us for a reason, Cam. If they didn't think we could do it, we wouldn't be here right now," Zach explained. His hand dropped from her back as he looked at the information desk. "Now where the hell is Hector?"

Hector was the equipment manager, responsible for checking in and out all equipment to the agents for their missions. Cammie walked up to the desk and pressed the buzzer for assistance. Within a minute, Hector stumbled into the lobby carrying two heavy black duffel bags from the warehouse in the back. "Sorry guys!" he wheezed, setting the large bags on the counter. "This should be all you need."

Cammie and Zach each unzipped their bags, examining their contents. They included comm units, grappling hooks, night vision goggles, handguns with silencers on the barrel, amongst other miscellaneous items. "Thanks, Hector!" Cammie said. She and Zach collected their bags and took them to their suites, where they packed and dressed for their mission.

Two hours later, they were standing on the roof of the CIA building where their helicopter landed on the helipad, ready to take them to a private CIA airport. They then boarded their plane and were finally on route to Russia. Cammie and Zach used their 10 hour flight to rest and go over their mission file until their pilot gave them a warning that they were approaching Moscow.

Cammie stood from her seat and began putting on her parachute backpack, since they would be parachuting into the city under the cover of darkness. She turned to see Zach, who was still sitting comfortably in his seat, finish chugging a whiskey on the rocks. "Zach, let's go! We're almost going to miss our drop zone! And why the hell are you getting drunk right now?" Cammie berated him.

Zach chuckled as he stood and swung on his own parachute backpack. "That was hardly enough alcohol to give me a slight buzz, let alone drunk," Zach replied nonchalantly. He walked over to the door of the plane and swung it open, letting the cool night air blast into the plane. "You ready?"

Cammie shook her head in disbelief at Zach's behavior, and went and stood next to him by the open door. She placed her night vision goggles on her head but as she was adjusting the view, Zach grabbed her and pulled her out of the plane with him as he let out a victory howl, "WOOOOOO!"


	3. The Disc

"YOU IDIOT!" Cammie screamed as they plummeted towards the Earth, but her words were immediately muffled by the rushing wind. Zach, who was still holding onto her shoulders from pretty much tackling her out of the plane, just laughed.

Cammie curled up her legs and put her feet on Zach's torso, kicking him away from her so she would have room to deploy her parachute without it getting tangled in Zach's. She somersaulted through the air away from him, the starry night sky twirling around her. Cammie looked down, and the ground was quickly approaching. They were going to be landing in a dark field miles outside of Moscow.

Once she had finally stabilized herself in an upright position, Cammie yanked the cord and her parachute shot out behind her. She drifted down and landed in the field with bent knees, so as to not break her legs from the landing. Immediately she went to work with shoving the parachute fabric back inside her pack, then slung her backpack onto her shoulders.

Cammie scanned the grassy field until she spotted where Zach had landed 30 feet away. She stomped over to him while he was focused on packing away his parachute. "Okay, I don't know what kind of personal vendetta you have against following mission protocol, but I'm _pretty_ sure Agent Black would frown upon you chugging 5 shots' worth of whiskey then pushing your colleague out of a plane!" Cammie berated him, taking off her night vision goggles so he could see how serious she was.

"Calm down, I made sure you had your parachute on," Zach smirked, zipping up his backpack. Then he stood up and swung it onto his back while he continued, "I just thought I'd try to loosen you up for the mission because you're so damn uptight about everything."

"There's nothing uptight about wanting to make sure everything goes perfectly, especially when we're talking about matters of national security! But you just go crazy and do whatever you-"

"Crazy?" Zach interrupted, "You really want to go there right now? Coming from the girl who got pissed at me for not giving you my ex's social security number."

"That was years ago!" Cammie retorted, "And for your information, I was going to check her health records due to your less-than-optimal reputation with _foreign affairs_."

Cammie was insinuating about the many rumors that went around the CIA field office about Zach's sexual escapades with women of various countries, but Zach simply brushed off this obvious jab and replied, "Sure, Cam, if that's what you want to tell yourself."

Cammie's mouth dropped open as she was about to defend herself, but suddenly a pair of headlights flashed on and off three times in the distance. "That's our ride," Zach announced, starting off in that direction. Cammie slid her night vision goggles back into place and followed Zach through the field until they reached a dirt road, where an old pickup truck was parked on the side.

Zach approached the driver's side window and spoke to the driver in Russian before giving Cammie the thumbs up. There were CIA agents undercover all around the world, and they were usually recruited for small assignments to help out other agents, such as driving them into the city. Cammie tossed her backpack into the bed of the truck then climbed in after it, laying down and using the backpack as a pillow. She took off her night vision goggles and placed them next to her.

Zach jumped into the truck after her, situating himself in the same position. "You were going to give her social security number to Liz, weren't you?" Zach asked as the truck rumbled to a start and began driving down the bumpy country road.

"Ehh, a little of column A, a little of column B," Cammie said playfully, looking up at the sky rather than at Zach. He smirked at her then turned and looked up at the sky as well.

"The stars look pretty nice out here in the middle of nowhere."

"Mmhmm," was all Cammie replied, and they laid there in silence looking at the constellations for the rest of the trip into Moscow. They knew they had entered the city once the ride became less bumpy on the better roads, and buildings began to appear in the sky above them. Neither of them dared to peek out of the truck bed for risk of being seen until they made it to their destination.

Eventually the truck slowly came to a stop and the CIA agent driving knocked on the back window of the cab, indicating that they could get out. Cammie and Zach quickly put their night vision goggles back on, grabbed their packs, and hopped out of the truck. The truck was parked in an alley between two tall buildings.

The driver rolled his window down then instructed, "Climb the fire escape ladder to the roof and you should have access to the KGB building across the street. In 35 minutes, your getaway vehicle will be parked in this spot with the GPS coordinates to your extraction point to take you home."

Cammie and Zach thanked him, then the truck drove away through the empty night streets and the two of them looked up at the fire escape ladder. The roof was eight stories up. Zach jumped up and grabbed the bottom rung of the fire escape, climbing up a couple rungs before lowering one hand down for Cammie, who was half a foot shorter than him and obviously didn't have as high of a vertical leap.

But Cammie ignored his hand and ran towards the brick wall of the building, jumping off the wall and grabbing the fire escape rung. Zach mumbled something above her but she was only able to make out the word "stubborn." She smirked as she quietly followed him up the fire escape to the roof.

They crept over to the far ledge of the roof that faced the KGB headquarters and opened their packs, each withdrawing a grappling spike launcher which would be their means of accessing the Russian government building. Cammie looked into the scope on her launcher and peered across the street to determine the best point where they could break in.

"There are some offices that appear to be empty on the fifth flo-," Cammie began, but was cut off by the sound of Zach shooting his grappling spike, which pierced into the concrete of the KGB building. She looked over to see him jump off the roof and swing across the street, quickly using his glass cutter to create a hole in a window for him to climb through.

"You've got to be shitting me," Cammie grumbled to herself. She should have known Zach wouldn't have wasted his time coordinating an entry plan with her. Cammie quickly shot her grappling spike close to where his landed, swung across the street, and caught herself on the exterior wall. As she climbed through the window, she pressed the retract button on her launcher and the grappling spike released itself from the concrete and got sucked back into her launcher to be used again.

Inside the dark office, Zach was stooped over the computer, rapidly typing as code scrolled across the screen. "Here," Cammie said, walking over to him with the flashdrive that would temporarily shut down the entire KGB's system in order to erase the CIA cover list currently being downloaded.

Zach grabbed Cammie's wrist, stopping her just before she was about to stick the flashdrive into the computer's USB port. "Wait," he ordered, not taking his eyes off the screen. He gently removed the flashdrive from her hand, and Cammie let him because he obviously had other plans that he was not sharing with her. She watched him press few more buttons, then a loading bar popped up on the screen and slowly began filling up.

"Zach," Cammie urged, anxiously looking around the small office, "We have to hurry or else-"

Before Cammie could even finish her sentence, alarms suddenly began blaring within the KGB building. "Fuck," Zach hissed through his teeth, pushing himself away from the desk. He quickly crossed the room over to a large bookcase, which he grabbed on one side. "A little help here?"

Cammie hurried over to him and picked up the other side of the bookcase, and the two dragged it in front of the office door. Footsteps and shouting could be heard in the hallway, fast approaching their room. "Zach, we need to get out of here now!" Cammie exclaimed, following him back over to the computer where the loading bar was only filled 61% of the way.

"Hold on!" he barked, clearly stressed out. They heard the doorknob unlock and the door slam into the bookcase, blocking the entrance. There was muffled angry shouting, followed by a storm of machine gun fire pelting the door.

Cammie and Zach instinctively crouched behind the desk to avoid being hit by any rogue bullets. "That door and bookcase are going to be splinters in about a minute," Cammie warned, cocking her pistol so it would be ready to fire. She peeked out from behind the desk to see that the bookcase was looking in pretty bad shape, weakening with every hit it took from the Russians trying to barge into the office.

"Got it," Zach finally announced as the loading completed and the computer ejected a small disc. Zach took it and slipped it into his front pocket, then plugged the flashdrive into the computer.

Immediately the computer screen went black and the lights flickered - every computer in the building should now have been shut off. Cammie smiled in success, but her joyful moment was cut short as a loud cracking sound came from the entrance to the office as the door and bookcase began to give way.

There was no time to look back; Zach climbed out of the window through the circular hole he had cut, and could barely balance on the narrow 3-inch-wide windowsill long enough to grab hold of Cammie. "Cammie, c'mere!" Zach called out, reaching one hand out for her and the other one - which was wielding his grappling spike launcher - pointed out towards the building across the street from which they came.

Cammie scrambled out of the window and leapt towards Zach, who had begun tilting away from the window as gravity took over. Zach fired his grappling spike launcher at the ledge of the roof just as Cammie made impact with him in a tight hug. He held onto her as they swung across the street, and Cammie looked over Zach's shoulder to shoot at the Russians who had finally burst into the office.

The grappling spike carried them up to the roof, where Cammie finally let go of Zach and climbed over the ledge onto the rooftop. She sprinted across the empty rooftop, bullets ricocheting off the ground around her and sending up dust.

Cammie reached the fire escape and ran down the stairs, for although she was out of view from the shooters across the street, they still had to make it to their getaway vehicle parked in the alley. She heard the banging of Zach's footsteps on the metal staircase behind her and knew he was safe as well. At the bottom of the fire escape, they dropped down into the alley and immediately noticed a Ducati motorcycle somewhat hidden in the shadows next to a dumpster.

Zach jumped into the driver's seat, kicked up the kickstand, and started the motorcycle's engine. Cammie hopped on back and slid her arms around Zach's torso as he drove them out of the alley and down a street towards their extraction point. Cammie looked over her shoulder while they sped away and re-cocked her gun.

"We've got company."


	4. Securing the Cover List

Zach and Cammie flew down the streets of Moscow on their motorcycle with three KGB agents chasing after them, also on motorcycles. Cammie held onto Zach as she turned and opened fire, but the Russians expertly dodged her bullets.

"We've got three of them on our tail," Cammie reported while she reloaded her gun. Then she turned around and continued firing at the enemy agents. She hit the front wheel, which caused the motorcycle to start wobbling until the driver finally lost control, crashed, and skidded across the road.

Cammie watched the other two agents pull out guns, so she spun around and exclaimed, "Retrieving fire!" Cammie huddled against Zach's back as the Russians started shooting at them, but Zach began swerving the motorcycle from right to left across the road to dodge their shots.

"Left," Zach called out, and Cammie leaned to the left as they sharply turned into an alleyway. Cammie turned around and aimed her gun at the end of the alley, waiting for the Russians to chase after them. One motorcycle followed them into the alley, and Cammie shot the driver in the chest. His motorcycle crashed into the alley wall.

Cammie turned back around as Zach turned the motorcycle out of the alley and onto another street. They were getting close to the edge of the city, where their extraction point was, but there was still one of the KGB motorcyclists after them. Cammie looked all around herself, looking for the missing agent, then turned her gun upside down and checked in the mag when the coast was clear. One bullet left.

"Hey, give me your gun, I only have one bullet left," Cammie said into Zach's ear while she was already reaching down for his gun holster. Her hand ran down his torso and paused for a second when she touched something warm and wet on the side of his abdomen - blood. Cammie bit her lip but took his gun from his waist without saying anything. Now was not the time to check injuries when they were in the middle of their escape.

"Spray 'n pray," Zach teased her with a chuckle. Cammie's mouth gaped open.

"I do not spra-," she began, but heard the squeal of tires behind them so she stopped and turned around. The third agent was on their tail again, and Cammie shot once but missed. On the second shot, she hit them in the neck and the motorcycle crashed into a street pole. "There."

"Spray 'n pray," Zach said again as they drove out of Moscow.

"Just because I miss one time doesn't mean I'm spraying and praying!" Cammie retorted, although she knew that in Zach's assassin mind that it did. "And besides, if you hadn't taken your sweet time in that office to download whatever it was, then we would have been out of there before the alarms even went off. What the hell was that, by the way?"

"I was just following protocol like you wanted me to," Zach replied, obviously hiding something. Zach pointed at a dark hill about a mile away, where the silhouette of a helicopter could be seen. "There's our extraction point."

"Don't try and change the topic, there was nothing in the protocol about retrieving a disc. Tell me what's going on!"

"That's confidential."

"Bullshit, you can't hide stuff from me when we're on this mission together. You nearly sabotaged our mission by making us wait so long to plug in the flashdrive," Cammie continued, but at this point she was just trying to convince Zach to tell her what he knows. Zach looked over his shoulder at her with a raised eyebrow. He didn't say anything until after they parked the motorcycle some yards away from the helicopter.

"If you want to know what's on the disc, ask Agent Black for the details," Zach loudly told her over the roar of the helicopter blades as they walked towards the helicopter. Cammie rolled her eyes because she knew that Agent Black kept things on a need-to-know basis, so if she hadn't already told Cammie about Zach's side mission then there was no way she was going to tell her about it after the fact. She decided to drop the subject.

Zach swung the helicopter door open and took the big step up inside, then held his hand down to Cammie. Tired from the long night, Cammie reluctantly took Zach's hand and he helped pull her up into the helicopter. Cammie noticed him wince as he did so, and she looked at him with concern after she closed the helicopter door.

"Let me see that," Cammie requested, nodding towards Zach's torso. He willingly sat down on the floor and Cammie knelt down next to him. She watched him lift his black turtleneck off over his head, his muscles rippling underneath his skin. He dropped his turtleneck next to them and Cammie heard the disc in its front pocket tap the floor.

The helicopter jerked as it took off into the sky, causing Cammie to slightly lose her balance. Her hand landed on Zach's bare shoulder as she caught herself, and immediately her gaze froze on the jagged scar on his shoulder. Cammie gently ran her thumb across it as she remembered where it came from, the last mission they worked together.

 _Begin Flashback_

 _Cammie and Zach were scaling a large skyscraper in the middle of the night, using suction cups on their hands and knees to climb the hotel building that was made entirely of glass. They had to reach the penthouse, where they were to interrupt the sale of enriched uranium to a group of terrorists._ _They paused their climb a few floors below the penthouse to turn the settings on their night vision goggles to heat vision, so they could see how many people were at the meeting in the penthouse._

 _Cammie took her hand out of her suction cup to adjust the settings at the same time a large gust of wind hit them, causing Cammie's suction cup on her other hand and one knee to break free from the glass window. Cammie gasped as she swung upside down, only hanging on by her one remaining knee suction cup, which also quickly uncupped itself from the window as it could not support her body weight._

 _She screamed as she plummeted from near the top of the skyscraper. "ZACH!" Cammie screamed, attempting to grab onto the windows with her suction cups to slow her fall._

 _"CAMMIE!" Zach yelled after her, pushing himself away from the glass and falling face-first after her. He kept his arms and legs together so he could fall faster to catch up to Cammie, who was still dragging her suction cups on the windows as she flipped head over heels._

 _"ZACH!" Cammie screamed again, still uncontrollably flipping around as she fell through the air. Zach eventually caught up to her but continued to fall past her. He placed his hand and knees on the window, the suction cups dragging on the glass and slowing him to a stop. He reached his other hand out to grab Cammie's wrist as she fell past him._

 _"Oh my god," Cammie breathed, fastening her suction cups back on the window. She tried to control her breathing to slow down her heart rate from the adrenaline coursing through her body._

 _Suddenly the shattering sound of glass came from above them, and Zach leaned his body over Cammie to protect her from the falling glass. "Ah!" Zach exclaimed as a large shard of glass penetrated his shoulder._

 _She looked up and saw the group of terrorists in the penthouse lean out the window with guns. They obviously heard the commotion from her being blown off the face of the building and discovered that they were after them. The terrorists started to open fire on Cammie and Zach, who were exposed on the side of the skyscraper._

 _Cammie kicked in the window below her and swung herself into the empty hotel room. Zach dropped into the room behind her, and Cammie turned to face him. He had a 6-inch long shard of glass sticking out of his shoulder. "Pull it out for me," he told her._

 _Cammie knew he wouldn't be able to complete the mission with glass in his shoulder, so Cammie nervously placed one hand gently on his chest to hold him steady and grabbed the glass with her other hand. She yanked it out fast as Zach shouted out and blood trickled down his arm._

 _End Flashback_

"So how's it look, doctor?" Zach asked jokingly, breaking Cammie out of her reverie. She moved her gaze from his shoulder down to the bullet would in his side. She gently touched his side and examined the wound closer.

"There's an exit wound, thank god," Cammie reported, "And it's nearly stopped bleeding." She took the first aid kit down from the wall and opened it, removing 2 rolls of gauze.

"Lucky me," Zach groaned.

Cammie placed the beginning of the gauze roll on the wound and started wrapping it around his torso. She could feel Zach's piercing green eyes watching her as she bandaged him up, so she avoided looking at him. She knew that if she allowed herself to feel sorry for him, she would forget all about how big of a stubborn, arrogant asshole he was.

"Do I make you nervous, Gallagher girl?" Zach suddenly asked with a smirk. This made Cammie look up at him, and she immediately blushed when she looked into those green eyes of his. _Make that an_ extremely hot _, stubborn, arrogant asshole,_ Cammie thought to herself.

"Absolutely not," Cammie answered, tying the knot in the bandage a little too tight and making him wince. That's what he got for teasing her like that. Cammie sat against the wall opposite of Zach and gave him a curt smile. Now all she had to do was figure out what was on that disc.

Suddenly the helicopter's monitor buzzed to life, and the static disappeared to reveal Agent Black. "Congrats, agents," she began. "The KGB database was shut down before they were able to download our cover list. Now are you ready for your next assignment?"


	5. Double Agent

**Author's Note: I'd like to give a big thank you to everybody who left such positive reviews! It truly means a lot, and it's your reviews that really keep me motivated to update this story faster :) With that being said, if there are any suggestions you want to make for the plot, leave them in a review and hopefully I can incorporate them into the story!**

* * *

Agent Black continued over the helicopter's monitor, "KGB Agent Nikolai Bukavitsky, otherwise known as the mole in our agency who attempted to transfer the CIA cover list over to the Russians, has been tracked down in London, England. Your next mission is to take out Agent Bukavitsky at a fundraising gala at the St. Ermin's hotel in two days. You will be posing as philanthropists, and you will find more details about your covers in your mission dossiers in your hotel rooms. Best of luck."

The screen went fuzzy with static, then turned black as the signal from CIA headquarters cut off before Cammie or Zach could reply. Not that Agent Black even needed a resounding 'yes' from them anyway, since they are under oath with the US government and are automatically required to fulfill any missions assigned to them.

Cammie's mind was in a whirl, trying to comprehend what she was just told. Why was she being assigned to this mission when it was clearly just an assassination? That was a job usually left for assassins like Zach, not common field agents like herself.

"Ready for me to teach you the ropes of being an assassin, Gallagher girl?" Zach asked her with a smirk. Cammie internally groaned at the thought of having to put up with his carefree antics for another mission.

"I'm sure I was just paired with you for this so we could tie up our loose ends from this last mission," Cammie reasoned. "The loose end being Agent Bukavitsky."

"Unless if the CIA thinks you have what it takes to be an assassin. This is how they start the training, by assigning you to assassination missions like this," Zach replied, raising an eyebrow at her. Cammie shook her head in refusal.

"There's no way I'd want to exclusively kill people for a living."

"Listen, we don't kill people for the fun of it. The target is a mole who endangered _all_ CIA field agents, past and present, including yourself. He's not the freaking Pope. So it's not an assassination per say, it's more of an... extrajudicial killing," Zach said. Cammie rolled her eyes with a sarcastic laugh. Zach jokingly held up his hands and continued, "Hey, I'm just trying to make it easier for you to sleep at night."

"Speaking of sleep, shut up so I can try and get some. We have a busy couple days ahead of us," said Cammie as she snuggled up against the hard metal wall of the helicopter. Zach didn't bother to reply to her sassy comment, but rather let her sleep for the 6 hour flight to London.

She finally awoke when she felt the helicopter slow to a landing. She blinked her eyes open to see Zach already standing at the fuselage door, waiting for the helicopter to come to a halt. He was wearing a plain white t-shirt over his bandages that he must have found stored away somewhere on the helicopter.

Cammie sat up, and Zach's black turtleneck slid off of her and onto the floor. Immediately Cammie checked the front pocket of the turtleneck, but the disc had been taken out of it. Zach probably knew she'd try to sneak it away from him the first chance she got, and he was right. "Oh good, you're up," he said. "We just arrived at St. Ermin's."

The helicopter gave a small jolt as they landed on the helipad, and Cammie stood up with his turtleneck in hand. "Thanks for this," she told him, handing the sweater over. "Anytime," he answered with a wink, before opening the door and hopping out onto the roof. Cammie followed him onto the roof of the hotel, closing the helicopter door behind her.

They crossed the roof to the roof access door, where a St. Ermin's concierge was holding the door open for them. "Welcome to London, Mr. Crowley and Ms. Petcher. Here are your keycards for your rooms," the concierge said loudly over the beating of the helicopter wings. To his knowledge, they were just a pair of wealthy philanthropists arriving to the hotel via private helicopter.

"Thank you, Isaac," Cammie read off his name tag, taking the small manila envelope from him that held her keycard while Zach did the same. "Enjoy your stay," Isaac replied with a smile. Cammie and Zach walked down the staircase to the tenth floor, where they would be staying. They both entered their respective hotel rooms to settle in before they had to discuss mission tactics, but Cammie was already preparing for how she'd find out what was on that disc.

There was a black duffel bag of mission equipment sitting on her bed that had already been dropped off by the CIA, along with her mission dossier sitting on the bedside table. Cammie immediately started digging through the bag, trying to find something useful. Poison-dipped ballpoint pen, lipstick gun, a hidden camera disguised as a smoke detector, knockout strips...

Cammie picked up the knockout strips, which are small clear strips that contain chloroform that can be absorbed through the skin. She carefully stuck the side of the strip without chloroform to her fingertip, and went to the door in her room that connected to the adjacent hotel room in which Zach was staying. Cammie opened her side of the door and politely knocked on Zach's side.

Zach opened the door, then cockily leaned against the doorframe and asked, "What, you miss me already, Gallagher girl?"

"How'd you guess?" Cammie purred, flirtatiously stroking her fingertips along his arm. Zach's eyebrows suddenly furrowed in confusion, as Cammie wasn't usually this playful. He looked down at his arm, where the knockout strip was now adhered to.

"Goddam-," Zach began, but stopped as the drowsiness took over. His eyelids drooped and his muscles gradually weakened until he crumpled onto the floor. Cammie couldn't help but laugh as she stepped over him and into his room.

She started searching through his bags, clothing pockets, and furniture drawers for the disc until she finally remembered that he always brought a hollowed-out Bible when he stayed in hotels, because hotel rooms always came stocked with a Bible and nobody would think to check for something hidden in a Bible. Cammie opened the bedside drawer and found two Bibles, one of which she opened and found the disc sitting in the hollow space.

"Typical," she murmured with a smirk and stepped back over Zach into her hotel room, where she got her laptop out of her duffel bag and plugged in the disc. Her foot tapped anxiously as the file loaded, then she opened the file and her mouth dropped open at what she saw.

Pictures. Pictures of herself.

Cammie's heart raced as she scrolled through the surveillance photos, and she recognized all of the locations from missions that she worked during the past two years. There was a picture of her walking into an Italian hostel where she stayed while protecting the Prime Minister's daughter from a kidnapping threat, another picture of her waiting in an airport to transport a captured terrorist, another picture of her in a bar where she was undercover to gather intel on a drug cartel, and so on.

 _But who could have taken these?_ Cammie wondered, and she immediately looked at Zach's unconscious body. She turned back to the pictures and took a second look at them, trying to see if they were all somehow related or if she could find the reflection of the photographer in a store window or something.

Finally she noticed the reflection of a man wearing a red baseball hat and mirrored aviator sunglasses walking about 50 feet behind her, across the street from where she was walking. Her breath caught in her throat as she recognized that red baseball hat - it was Zach's, and she had seen him wear it many times before during training days. She kept scanning the pictures and found Zach in yet another picture. This time he was sitting on a bench with his bright green eyes peering at her over the newspaper he was reading.

Even though Cammie could not find Zach in all of the pictures, it was probably safe to say he was still there somewhere, following her. But why? And who was taking those pictures, if not Zach? She mentally kicked herself for not noticing she had a tail during all those missions, but then again Zach was an experienced agent who knew how to stay undetected.

Cammie walked over to Zach and grabbed his ankles to drag his body all the way into her room so she'd have a better view of him once he started coming to. The chloroform would keep Zach unconscious for quite a while longer, but what was she supposed to do when he woke up? They had to work a mission together in a little over a day, and suddenly everything she knew about him (which, admittedly, was not much) seemed like a lie.

Not knowing what else to do, Cammie grabbed her friend and called the most reasonable person she knew - her friend Liz. "Hello?" came Liz's calm, comforting voice once she picked up.

"Liz! Oh my god, Liz, I need your help with something," Cammie blurted out.

"Okay, okay, jeez, what is it, Cam?"

"I just got done working on a mission in Russia with Zach and-"

"Wait, _Zach_ Zach? As in Zachary Goode?" Liz interrupted with a teasing tone.

"Yes, but it's not like that this time. I'm completely done doing that."

"You mean you're done doing _him_."

"Liz," Cammie said in a serious tone so Liz would stop giggling at her own joke. "Zach is currently knocked out on some chloroform because he was acting suspicious on our last mission, and long story short, he has a disc of pictures of me that he stole from KGB headquarters. But he's in the pictures too, and he's apparently been following me on all my past missions during the last two years."

"Damn," Liz replied. "Do you know why?"

"Not at all, that's where I was hoping you could help me."

"But how?"

"Just say you saw something in my file that you needed to cross-reference with whatever Zach is working on, for, you know, organizational purposes or something," Cammie begged. "And since he was downloading the disc in the middle of our mission in Russia, that actually does mean they are connected somehow..."

"But I'm not supposed to know that!" Liz exclaimed, and she was right. How was she to know that the disc even existed and that Zach was assigned to take it?

"Okay but what if you-"

"Cammie, I'm sorry, but I can't help you out with this one. If they notice me snooping through files that I'm not currently supposed to be working on, especially files concerning my best friend, I can get in deep shit for leaking intel," Liz explained.

"I know, I know, it's just that I don't know how else to figure out what is going on," Cammie replied, eyeing Zach's limp body on the ground. "The CIA obviously won't tell me, and who knows if I can trust whatever Zach says."

"Well it looks like he's your only hope since he's the only one who knows the truth," Liz reasoned. Cammie nodded and noticed that Zach's shoulder suddenly twitched.

"Hey, Liz, I have to go, I think he's starting to wake up," Cammie whispered. She reached for a gun and pointed it at Zach.

"Good luck and stay safe!" Liz told her, and they both hung up. Cammie sat still on the hotel bed, watching for any more movement from Zach. Sure enough, his arm moved and he slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position with a groan. He drowsily blinked his eyes and looked at Cammie.

"How long was I out?" he mumbled.

"About an hour," Cammie answered him, her face as still as stone.

"What the hell!"

"Yeahhh, that's definitely not good for you," she replied, cocking her gun. Zach finally noticed the gun in her hand and he opened his mouth to say something, but she interrupted him. "But neither is getting shot, so I suggest you start telling me what the fuck is going on here."


	6. Secret Mission

Zach innocently held his hands up as he slouched against the hotel room wall. He had his characteristic smirk on his face, despite the fact that Cammie still had her gun pointed directly at him. "Well I don't know, Gallagher girl, I was just unpacking my shit in my hotel room when you decided to knock me out for some goddamn reason. So why don't _you_ tell _me_ what your problem is?" he asked teasingly.

Cammie didn't respond to his question, she only pulled her thumb back to cock the gun, and a metallic click resounded within the hotel room as a bullet slid into the chamber. "I'd lose the attitude if I were you," she spat out. "Now why have you been taking pictures of me on my missions?"

"What are you talking about?" Zach asked with what seemed like genuine confusion. Cammie stood and pressed the eject button on her computer, removed the disc, and tossed it at Zach's chest.

He caught the disc and looked down at it, then looked over into his messy hotel room, where his belongings had been strewn across the room during Cammie's search for the disc. "Jesus, you never could stay out of other people's business, could you?" he said, shaking his head in frustrated amazement.

"This looks like my fucking business, seeing as pictures of me are being kept in KGB headquarters!" Cammie practically yelled. "And that's a pretty hypocritical statement coming from you, when you're apparently working both sides."

" _What_? Are you accusing me of being a double agent?"

"You've been tracking all of my missions over the past 2 years and reporting back to the KGB, what could possibly be the reason for that if you weren't also a KGB agent?" she demanded.

Zach pressed his lips together and stood up. Cammie took a step back from him, but still kept her gun trained on him. Zach firmly explained, "I'm not reporting back to the KGB, so stop assuming things that you know so little about. There's a reason why you don't know anything about this, and it's because the CIA says _you're not supposed to know_."

"I'd say it's my right to know, especially if it's concerning me and my missions. Just like how it's probably the CIA's right to know that you and Jonas - but mostly you - forged the financial expenses on one of our missions so you could purchase a new suit," Cammie said with a playful smirk.

Zach's mouth dropped open in surprise that she was blackmailing him, then defensively added, "Okay, that was a brand new $5,000 Balmain suit that got covered in blood splatter, which mission expenses should cover since the blood was from a man I was assigned to kill."

"Actually, it was a little over $5,000, which is worth a suspension," Cammie pointed out. "And you and I both know the CIA doesn't refund any stained clothing."

"Well fuck, Cammie, what do you want me to do? Tell you _classified_ information and ruin my career, or else you'll tattle on me and get me suspended?"

"Who says the CIA is going to find out that you told me classified information?"

Zach eyed Cammie suspiciously. "First put down your gun, you obviously know I'm not a KGB agent," Zach began. Cammie rolled her eyes but complied by lowering her gun to her side. "So let me get this straight... You want me to tell you how these pictures of you got in the KGB headquarters, but are you really going to stay quiet about it? You won't even tell Bex or Liz or Macey? This can't get back to headquarters or-"

"I promise. I just want to know what the hell is going on," she interrupted.

They stared at each other for a few moments in silence, until Zach finally agreed, "Fine. I can't afford another suspension from the field, and as long as the CIA doesn't find out that I told you this, there shouldn't be any problems."

He walked into his room and began rummaging through his suitcase on his bed until he found his small laptop which was given to all agents by the CIA. Cammie sat on the bed next to his suitcase as Zach went through the security measures to access his laptop: first he had to scan his fingerprints, his retinas, and prick his finger on a lancet to verify his blood. When he was finally logged in, Zach pulled up a file of pictures.

He silently handed the laptop over to Cammie, who began scrolling through the pictures. Each photo was taken of a few different men who seemed to be watching something in the distance, and Cammie recognized the background of each photo as being the various places she had traveled on her missions. "Who are these men?" she wondered out loud, innocently looking up at Zach.

Zach took the laptop from her and switched over to a different page, which gave the profiles of nine different men, then handed it back for Cammie to look at. "A few years ago on one of your missions, a fellow agent saw a man tailing you. He reported it to the CIA, who continued to monitor the situation, but the man appeared to be of no danger. However, the CIA kept monitoring you and noticed that you were being tailed on every single mission you worked, so I got assigned to your case and have been tailing your tails for the past 2 years," Zach informed her.

Now it finally made sense why Zach appeared in a few of the pictures on the disc, since he had to be close to her to keep an eye on her tail. But still, a chill ran up Cammie's spine as she looked into the eyes of the men on Zach's computer. "Tailed by these people? What do they want?"

"Well, I'm still working on that. I ran their profiles through the CIA database and it turns out that they are in fact registered KGB agents, but so far their motive for tailing you has been unclear. All they've done is take pictures of you and write things down," he said, closely watching Cammie's reaction to this news.

She set Zach's laptop down beside her, not wanting to look at the faces of the KGB agents anymore. She sat there in silence, just staring at the wall in front of her, her brain obviously in a whirl from all this new information. Zach continued, "These past 2 years they have only been tailing you during your missions, but recently, as in this past month, they have begun tailing you nearly every day. That's why you were assigned to come with me to KGB headquarters, because I had to do my mission and so you could stay near me while this was going on."

"And it's why I'm assigned to take out Agent Bukavitsky with you in 2 days, since those people are still following me," Cammie reasoned.

Zach nodded and opened his mouth to reply, but a loud knocking on the door interrupted him. Cammie jumped to her feet and instinctively grabbed her gun. Zach stepped closer to her and put a reassuring hand on her arm. "Calm down, it's one of our agents. I have to have minor surgery done on my bullet wound, but my buddy Grant will be taking my place to watch you for the next few hours until I'm back," he explained comfortingly.

Then Zach walked over to the door and opened it, revealing a tall, blonde-haired man in a suit. "Zach!" Grant exclaimed, stepping into the room and embracing Zach in a half-handshake, half-hug. Cammie heard some incomprehensible murmuring as Zach said something to Grant in his ear, and Grant turned to look at Cammie.

"Cammie! Nice to finally meet you," Grant somewhat introduced himself. He had a smirk on his face that reminded Cammie of Zach.

Suddenly, Cammie felt extremely uncomfortable to be facing Grant and Zach, both of which had known that she had been being trailed for the past 2 years without her knowledge. Cammie needed some alone time to contemplate everything that she had just been told. "Grant," she nodded at him then passively continued, "I'll be in my room."

Cammie went into her room, then shut the door which divided her room from Zach's. "Still a feisty one, isn't she?" she overheard Grant say to Zach in the other room. She couldn't make out what Zach said back to that, but heard his door shut as he left for his surgery.

She went and collapsed on her bed, staring up at the ceiling with her mind reeling. It was hard for her to get over the fact that she had been tailed on all her missions without her noticing, and she couldn't stop thinking about why she was the one being followed out of all other CIA agents. Not to mention that every small sound in the hotel made her jump, and her eyes were constantly darting back and forth between her door and her window, the only possible entry points into her room.

She hated feeling so vulnerable and uninformed as to what was going on, but most of all she hated the fact that Zach was now one of the only people that she could trust. Cammie finally stood from her bed to change into a comfy pair of clothes: grey terry-cloth short shorts and a plain white tank top. She laid back down in bed and accidentally ended up falling asleep.

* * *

Sometime during the night, Cammie shot up in bed, her heart pounding. The next thing she knew, the door adjoining to Zach's room flew open, so Cammie snatched her gun off of her nightstand and pointed it at the door.

Zach immediately held his hands up in surrender and exclaimed, "Whoa, hey there, Cammie!"

"Sorry," Cammie breathed a sigh of relief once she realized it was him, and placed her gun back on the nightstand. Meanwhile, Zach lowered his hands and started checking around her room, in her bathroom and closet until he was sure the coast was clear.

"Well there's nobody here," Zach told her. "But I heard you screaming so I had to come make sure."

"I'm sorry," Cammie repeated. "I think I had a nightmare, but now I can't even remember what it was about."

Zach reached up and scratched the back of his head as he said, "See, this is why I didn't want to tell you what was going on, I didn't want you to worry."

"No, I'm glad I know, it's just going to take some getting used to," Cammie assured him. She bit her lip and looked around her room. Even though she couldn't remember exactly what her dream was about, she still felt uneasy, and Zach could tell.

"Um, I'm watching old spy movies from the 90's if you want to join me for a bit," Zach offered, pointing into his room. Cammie grinned at him and nodded, throwing the covers off of herself and following him into his room. Her eyes were trained on the TV screen as she made herself comfortable next to Zach on his bed, propping herself up with pillows against the headboard.

"Ronin from 1998?" she asked.

"You got it," he answered, grabbing a bottle of Maker's Mark from the bedside table and taking a swig of it.

"Getting drunk while watching spy movies to point out their mistakes, that's classic you," Cammie noted. "But you really shouldn't be drinking alcohol this soon after surgery. Alcohol is a vasodilator, you know."

"But in high enough doses it can act as a vasoconstrictor," Zach replied with a wink. He held the bottle out to her. "Would you like some?"

Cammie shrugged and took the bottle from him. She took a large swig then handed it back. They continued watching the movie while pointing out inaccurate scenes and drinking whiskey for about an hour, until Cammie finally fell asleep on Zach's shoulder.


	7. Honeypot

Cammie awoke in the morning in her own bed to the smell of bacon wafting in from the other room. She drowsily blinked her eyes open and looked around her hotel room, wondering how she made it back last night, before she finally came to the conclusion that Zach must have carried her to bed at some point in the night. Speaking of Zach, Cammie looked over at the open door which separated their rooms. That must be where the breakfast smell was coming from.

Cammie crawled out of bed and shyly peeked into Zach's room to find him sitting back against the headboard of his bed, same as last night when they were watching the movie. He had a plate full of breakfast food and was currently taking a big bite of French toast when he noticed Cammie in the doorway. He waved her in since his mouth was full.

She stepped into his room and eyed the smorgasbord of breakfast food sitting at the foot of his bed. Zach finally swallowed and motioned to the food. "What's up, Gallagher girl? You want breakfast?" he asked nonchalantly.

"How'd you pay for all this? Did you order one of everything?" she asked jokingly, but very could have well been serious. There was French toast, hash browns, cereal, bacon, eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy, waffles, fruit salad, and an assortment of drinks to choose from.

Zach lifted a gray credit card into the air. "The platinum CIA expense card," he replied. "If you have to stay out of sight until our mission, we might as well take advantage of room service."

"Well we definitely won't starve then," said Cammie, picking up a plate and filling it up with breakfast food. When she was done, Zach picked up a manila folder from his bedside table and handed it to her.

"Here's your mission dossier, I took it from your room last night to look over it," he explained. Neither of them mentioned the part where he had carried her to bed after she fell asleep. Cammie took her breakfast and mission dossier over to the desk in Zach's room, where sat down to eat and look over the file.

Her name was Samantha Petcher, recent widow of a rich businessman who died suddenly of a massive heart attack. Her cover was 28 years old, which she could easily pull off since she was 25 years old herself. Cammie's eye's floated down to the part of her mission dossier that showed her net worth.

"$8 million?" Cammie exclaimed, her eyes bugging out at the file. She looked up at Zach, who simply nodded.

"Yep, you're gonna be quite the honeypot. Pretty face, nice body, recently single, $8 million..."

Cammie choked on her orange juice. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up. _Honey pot_?"

"Um, yeah, it's when you flirt with our target in order to-"

Cammie frustratedly waved her hand in the air to make Zach stop talking, which made him smirk at her. "I know what a fucking honeypot is," she snapped. "But who thought it would be a good idea for _me_ to honeypot Agent Bukavitsky when he's a mole for the KGB, and the KGB has been stalking me for the past 2 years?"

"Well I think _you'd_ have more success with honeypotting him than I would...," Zach joked, but Cammie just glared at him in all seriousness so he continued, "The charity ball tonight is going to be in masquerade, so he shouldn't be able to know it's you. Your outfit is already hanging in your closet. And I know the situation is less than ideal, but you'll have me and five other CIA agents posted around the party to keep tabs on you. Honeypotting is just the best way we can get him alone."

Cammie made a disgruntled face. She knew Zach was right - there were many ways they could possibly get Agent Bukavitsky alone to be assassinated, but honeypotting is likely to be the most efficient tactic. Honestly, she just hated acting like a dumb bimbo in order to appeal to a man's primitive sexual desire.

"Okay, my job will be to seduce him back to his hotel room, so what's your cover?"

"My name is Ben Crowley, just your regular 30 year old stockbroker looking to donate to tonight's charity, something about orphaned children. I'll stay in the background of the party, watching as you engage Agent Bukavitsky. Once you have him alone in his room, let us know via the comms units and we can ambush him," Zach explained.

He suddenly looked at his watch and rose from his bed, laying his empty breakfast plate on the bedside table. "Sorry to run out on you again, but I have to meet with the other agents a couple floors below to go over our game plan for tonight. I should only be gone for about an hour, so Grant will be coming over to keep eye on you while I'm gone again."

Cammie watched as Zach went around the room getting ready for his meeting. "If you're only going to be gone for an hour and you're not even leaving the hotel, I think I can handle myself for that long," Cammie offered. She knew she had to be in protective custody for a reason, but it made her feel incompetent when she had to have somebody to watch her just sit in her hotel room for an hour.

"Tell that to the CIA who practically assigned me to be your personal watchdog these past 2 years. It's for your own protection," Zach persisted. There was a knock at the door, which Zach opened to reveal Grant.

Grant came inside and nodded at Cammie. "Morning, Cammie," he said.

"Hey, Grant," Cammie replied with a tight-lipped smile. She couldn't bring herself to want to sit awkwardly in Zach's room with his agent friend whom she barely knew, so she stood up with her mission dossier and retreated towards her room. "I'll just be relaxing in here."

Grant nodded again at her as Cammie went into her room and closed the door. She heard Zach give Grant a few parting words before leaving for his meeting, and she spent the rest of the day watching cable TV and going over her mission paperwork.

* * *

Cammie gazed at herself in her bathroom mirror as she sprayed the finishing touches of perfume on her collarbones. She was wearing the satin olive green ballgown that had been hanging in her closet. It was strapless, so the top of the gown hugged her petite curves before cascading down to the floor. She took the matching masquerade mask and tied it on, leaving her barely recognizable. Tonight, she would be just another attractive brunette at a charity ball.

Cammie crossed over to her bed, where she had laid out her equipment for tonight. She took the leg holster for her pistol and wrapped it high up around one thigh. Her gown also had a high slit in it, which would make it easy for her to grab her weapon if it came down to that.

She then took a tiny earbud - her comms unit - and stuck it in her right ear, which was hidden from view by her curly locks of chestnut hair. She pressed a few buttons on her comms unit and it crackled to life. Then she held down a button and asked, "Zach, you there?"

There was a pause, then she heard him reply back, "Ten-four, be there in a bit."

Zach politely knocked on the door separating their two rooms before letting himself in. He took two steps into her room, then froze, looking her up and down. His eyes widened in admiration and he blurted out, "Wow... Cammie, wow, you look-"

"Thanks," Cammie interrupted, immediately feeling her face start to flush under Zach's intense gaze. Luckily her masquerade mask could hide her blushed cheeks. "You do too."

Zach's tailored suit fit snugly over his muscular arms and chest. He had also let his facial hair grow into a scruffy beard, which made his piercing green eyes look even more daunting than usual, especially with his black masquerade mask on. Zach smirked at her and she gave a sly grin back.

"Okay," Cammie breathed, "Well, let's do this thing."

"Alright, remember, we are now complete strangers. So I'll let you leave your room two minutes ahead of me, then I'll be right behind you. Take the main elevator down to the lobby, where the gala should be to the left in a ballroom," Zach instructed. "Keep me posted via the comms unit, and when you get to the ballroom, the other five agents will also join our comms sequence."

"Got it," Cammie replied, grabbing a small wristlet which contained her cellphone and room key. "I'll see you down there, Mr. Crowley."

Zach nodded at her, then Cammie turned to leave her room. She walked down the hall to the main elevator, her high heels clicking on the marble floors. She pressed the elevator button and watched the digital screen read the floor numbers as the elevator slowly rose to her floor. The elevator dinged to her floor right as the two minute mark passed, and Cammie heard Zach's hotel room door slam shut from down the hall.

Zach nonchalantly walked up next to Cammie right as the elevator doors slid open and a man in an Pakistani thobe stepped out. "Ma'zarat," Zach pardoned himself and stepped out of the man's way.

"Shukriya," the man replied with a nod and continued on his way. Meanwhile, Zach held the elevator door open for Cammie and motioned for her to go ahead of himself. She went into the elevator and pressed the lobby button as Zach joined her in the elevator.

"تم نے مجھے حیران ختم کبھی نہں," Cammie told him once the elevator doors had shut.

"Huh?" Zach looked at her in confusion.

"What, I thought you spoke Urdu," Cammie replied, motioning to the elevator doors when Zach had said 'excuse me' to the Pakistani man. Urdu was one of the several languages she'd learned at Gallagher Academy.

"Ohhh, no, no, I only know a few phrases like excuse me, thank you, and کوئی گندگی آپ کو سور شیطان زیادتی بکری."

"One of the only phrases you know in Urdu is 'no shit, you goat-raping pig devil'?" Cammie exclaimed, her mouth open wide in shock. "Why would you _possibly_ need to know how to say that?"

"What? My friend told me it meant 'I'm sorry'... Huh. Probably why that night in a Karachi whorehouse suddenly went from pretty bad to much worse," he pondered, furrowing his eyebrows together as he thought back to that night he went undercover. Then he chuckled to himself, shook his head, and murmured, "Fucking Jonas, always pulling pranks like that."

Cammie rolled her eyes and declared, "I'm gonna have to stop you there. We have to focus on finding Agent Bukavitsky now, and I have no interest in hearing about yet another one of your rogue missions that somehow still ended up successful."

"If that's what you wish, Ms. Petcher," Zach replied cockily. The elevator finally reached the lobby, and Cammie wasted no time exiting the elevator and making her way towards the ballroom. She didn't bother waiting on Zach, since the two of them weren't supposed to make contact tonight anyway.

Cammie entered the ballroom and immediately felt eyes on her. The room was packed in people dressed in elegant ballgowns and suits, all standing around with drinks and chatting to each other. On one end of the room, there was a silent photo slide presentation on the projector which showed pictures of orphaned children that tonight's charity gala would be benefiting. On the other, there was a small orchestra playing classical music for the guests.

Suddenly, Cammie's comms unit crackled in her ear, meaning that her comms unit had connected to the other agents in the room. She walked through the crowd, eager to start milling around and looking for Agent Bukavitsky.

"Care for a drink, Madame?" a server to her right asked her. Cammie turned and selected a flute of champagne off of his serving tray with a smile.

She took a sip of her drink as the server vanished back into the crowd, looking for other guests to serve. Then a girl spoke into her comms unit, "I have eyes on the target."

"So do I," came Zach's familiar voice into her comms unit, "Chameleon, he's 30 feet straight ahead."

Cammie raised her eyes from her flute of champagne up and into the crowd in front of her. There was a group of philanthropists talking with each other right in front of her, blocking her view of what lay ahead, so Cammie casually walked around them and continued to scan the crowd. All of a sudden, Cammie noticed a pair of icy blue eyes staring at her out of the periphery of her vision.

She turned and made direct eye contact with Agent Bukavitsky.


	8. The CoC

Somehow, amid the din of conversation and the bustling ballroom full of British socialites dressed in masquerade, Cammie had found the exact man she was looking for: Agent Bukavitsky. She recognized him by his ice blue eyes and tousled blonde hair. Cammie made direct eye contact with him while he was standing amongst a group of three ladies dressed in ballgowns. He must have been in the middle of a conversation with the young woman to his left before he saw Cammie, because the blond was still talking emotively at Bukavitsky, even though his focus was no longer on her.

Bukavitsky held eye contact with Cammie long enough to make it obvious that he definitely noticed her. Even the woman next to him finally noticed he wasn't paying attention to her anymore, and followed his gaze to see Cammie. Cammie stopped wandering through the ballroom and gave Bukavitsky a shy smile, looking down into her champagne flute.

When she looked up, she saw Bukavitsky place his hands on the lower backs of the women on each side of him, quickly leaning in to murmur something into each of their ears. He was excusing himself away from them, but all the while still looking at Cammie.

"He notices you, Chameleon," came Zach's voice in her ear. She couldn't reply or else she would give away the fact that she's wearing a comms unit, but he was right.

Bukavitsky started walking towards her, leaving the three women looking bitterly over their shoulders at Cammie. They were undoubtedly jealous she had so quickly stolen their spotlight. Cammie's heart began racing in her chest, worried that Bukavitsky's sudden fascination with her was because he recognized her. Cammie hoped that wasn't true; after all, she was the Chameleon. But then again, she knew the KGB was after her so their agents may be more familiar with her face.

"Good evening, прекрасное," Bukavitsky greeted her with an apparent Russian accent, extending a hand out to her. Cammie smiled, pretending to be flattered as she morphed into her cover, recent widow Samantha Petcher.

"Hello, stranger," Cammie purred in reply, holding out her hand in exchange. She thought it was interesting that he didn't bother to hide his accent. Bukavitsky took it and pressed his lips to her knuckles, then released his grip on her hand.

"What is a beautiful woman like you doing at an event like this on your own?" he asked, his eyes twinkling playfully. She could tell he felt completely at ease in this environment, not even knowing that seven undercover CIA agents surrounded him, planning his takedown.

"What, a girl can't have any fun?" Cammie teased back. She batted her thick eyelashes as she took a long last sip of her champagne.

"Now, now, I never said that," he chuckled. "What's your name, darling? You look like you could use another drink."

"Samantha Petcher. I'd actually love another drink, Mr...?"

"Blatov. Erik Blatov."

Cammie smirked at Bukavitsky's use of a fake name. She just loved knowing she was one step ahead of her targets. He grabbed two more champagne flutes from a passing server, and handed one to Cammie. He held his up to her in a toast.

"Here, Mrs. Petcher, to us having a great-"

"Oh, it's Ms. Petcher," Cammie interrupted him, touching her hand to her collarbones as she motioned to herself. She watched Bukavitsky's gaze wander down to her exposed shoulders in her strapless dress.

"Ah, Ms. Petcher," he repeated, sounding satisfied by her correction. Cammie clinked her glass on his, and they both took a swig of their champagne. They spent the following 45 minutes having flirtatious small talk and drinking flute after flute of champagne, then after the speech about the charity was given, their conversation turned towards what they were doing in the UK. Bukavitsky's cover was a traveling businessman, while Cammie pretended to be traveling from America solely to visit this charity event (which was actually mostly true).

"I arrived in the UK pretty early this morning, so I'm still a little jet-lagged, you know?" Cammie wrinkled her nose at him. She tried to slur her words just enough for him to think she was tipsy. "I was even too tired to go sight seeing before this."

"I have a view of Big Ben from my hotel room," Bukavitsky bragged. "Twelfth floor."

"Oh, you do?" Cammie gushed, dropping a hand on his arm. "Let's go see it!" She lowered her voice and leaned in closer to him. "But only for a little bit," she teased, grinning at him like she meant the opposite. Bukavitsky was eating it up.

"Samantha," Bukavitky addressed, offering his arm out to her. Cammie smiled gleefully, pretending to be excited about seeing Big Ben despite the fact she has already scaled the building in a past mission, and placed her hand in the crook of his arm. Bukavitsky began to lead her out of the ballroom. Her honeypot techniques had paid off, and he was leading her straight to his room.

"Chameleon with target exiting the north ballroom doors," Cammie heard an agent report through her comms unit. Through her peripheral vision, she was able to spot Zach, Grant, and three other CIA agents dispersed around the ballroom, always watching Cammie and their surroundings.

Bukavitsky entertained Cammie aka Samantha Petcher with boring Big Ben trivia and she pretended to be amused, as they walked into the lobby and waited for an elevator. There was a large group of charity event-goers in front of them as others had the same idea of retiring to their hotel rooms for the night, so Cammie had to continue

"They're taking the elevator," Zach said, "Grant and I will take the stairs to try to beat them to the twelfth floor. Everybody else, try and follow them up the elevators."

Four voices chimed in with, "Copy."

Cammie and Bukavitsky got in the elevator and took it to the twelfth floor. The doors opened and they stepped out into the hall. "We're at the very end," Bukavitsky informed her, taking his keycard out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

Cammie gazed down the hall and asked, "1248?" so the other could hear from her comms unit.

"Mhm," was all he replied, sticking the keycard into the slot and opening the door for her. "Here we are, my прекрасное."

Cammie entered the room cautiously, a little uneasy to be going in first. She paused once inside the room to let Bukavitsky go ahead of her. "Well, do you want a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon? I'm sorry, but it's all I have."

"Two men entered an elevator looking similarly like KGB agents from the mission dossier. Can't verify because of their masks, but due to the crowd I'm taking the next elevator after them," a CIA agent reported in Cammie's ear. Her body tensed up at this sign of a complication in their mission, but she knew she just had to focus on the task at hand: Nikolai Bukavitsky.

Bukavitsky crossed the room over to the mini bar, where he took out the bottle of wine and grabbed a wine glass from the counter. "I'd love one, thank you," Cammie said graciously. She followed him across the room, making sure to peek into the bathroom and open closet to be sure they were alone, and accepted a full glass from him.

"Now that we have the wine, all we need is Big Ben," Cammie continued, taking a sip. Bukavitsky finished pouring himself a glass and chuckled while he turned around to face the window.

"Chameleon, keep the target preoccupied. Grant and I are almost-," Zach said in her ear, but was cut off by static, then silence. Cammie knew they were running up the stairwell, which most likely did not have great service, but his message cutting off still made her feel uneasy.

"So persistent, are you?" he commented. Then he pointed with his wine glass across the skyline at Big Ben. "Come here, you can see it."

Cammie walked up next to him, both of them standing directly in front of the huge floor-to-ceiling window. She tilted her head closer to him in order to get a better look, and he placed a hand on her lower back, drawing her closer. "Oh, I se-," Cammie began to explain, but was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door. She looked at annoyance at the door, pretending that the interruption of their privacy bothered her, but in actuality Cammie was on high alert about who could be behind the door. The two men from the elevator, perhaps?

"I'll go tell whoever it is that we don't want to be disturbed," Bukavitsky told her, drawing away as he moved towards the door. But Cammie could still detect the slightest bit of nervousness in his voice; he knew people could still be after him.

"Noo, just ignore them, they'll go away," Cammie begged in a sultry, pouty voice.

"Almost there!" a voice said from the comms unit. In that instant, Cammie knew whoever was at the door was definitely not CIA, and therefore not worth the risk of opening the door for.

"Don't worry, baby, I'll just-," Bukavitsky tried to explain, waving off her plea. But he kept moving towards the door, and Cammie couldn't have him opening it until her backup had arrived. She quickly snuck a hand into the slit of her dress and withdraw her pistol, pointing it directly at him.

"No, we're not answering that," Cammie ordered in a commanding tone, vastly different from the voice she had been using to pose as Samantha Petcher. The immediate change in her tone of voice caused Bukavitsky to freeze, now knowing he was trapped. Cammie tossed her wine glass aside, shattering it in the corner.

His eyes froze on Cammie's pistol, and after a few solid seconds, Bukavitsky dropped his wine and leapt for the nightstand by the bed. Cammie shot at his torso, hitting him in the lower corner of his abdomen. He landed on the bed, groaning in pain, but still reaching for the top drawer of the nightstand. His hand grasped the drawer handle, about to pull it open, right as Cammie moved across the room and kicked the drawer shut.

The knocking on the door had turned into outright banging; whoever was outside really wanted in, and Cammie didn't have much time until they succeeded. Luckily for her, paranoid Bukavitsky had both dead-bolted and chain locked the door. She stood over him, still pointing the gun at him as he moaned and held his wound.

Cammie whisked her mask off her face now that Bukavitsky was facing certain death, and when he caught sight of her face he gasped through gritted teeth. "Morgan?! You bitch," he spit out.

"Now, now, Bukavitsky, I'm going to ignore that last little comment because I know you must be in a great deal of pain, but you might want to think more wisely. From here on out, it's all up to you whether you suffer or go out quickly," Cammie threatened. "Now why is the KGB after me?"

"They're not! Even if they were, I wouldn't know, I don't have that level of clearance."

Without a pause, Cammie pointed her gun and his kneecap and fired, causing Bukavitsky to again cry out in pain. The people outside the door now began ramming into it after hearing the commotion coming from inside.

"I really don't have time for this, as you can see," Cammie warned him, nodding her head at the door. "You can either tell me the answers I want, or I'll shoot out your other kneecap as well. Or maybe your shoulder?"

"Fine, fine," Bukavitsky begged, panting in pain. His blood began to pool and stain the comforter of the bed. "The KGB isn't after you... It's a different organization that has been recruiting KGB members."

"What organization? What do they want?" she demanded, shaking her gun at him. Cammie could hear the hinges of the door starting to give way, and wood beginning to crack.

"They're called the CoC. I don't know what they want, you... you either have some kind of information they want or they know they can use you-"

Cammie shot Bukavitsky in the forehead. She knew that was all the information he was aware of; she wasn't interested in hearing his hypothetical ideas of why she was their target. She opened the drawer of the nightstand and stole Bukavitsky's pistol. She now had two pistols full of ammunition.

It was then that the hotel room door finally gave in, and the door cracked along the door handle, swinging the door wide open. Cammie crouched behind the bed and Bukavitsky's body, firing a stream of bullets towards the door.

But much to her surprise, the door was only for a second or two, just long enough to toss an aluminum canister into the room and swing the door shut once more. Cammie immediately recognized the canister, which began releasing a stream of gas into the room. It was chloral hydrate gas, an agent that would induce unconsciousness if inhaled for too long.

Whoever was outside the door was trying to make her an easy target once they've entered the room. Courtney knew she stood no chance by leaving the hotel room willingly, so she would have to stick it out from the inside.

Cammie held her breath and ran into the restroom, locking the door behind her. She grabbed a fuzzy white towel and got it soaking wet in the sink, then stuffed it in the crack under the bathroom door to prevent extra gas from leaking under. She also turned on the bathroom fan to try to keep the air circulating. But Cammie couldn't hold her breath any longer, and finally ended up gasping for air.

She took a little washcloth and got it wet, holding it over her mouth and nose to further filter the air she breathed. Cammie settled into the corner of the bathroom by the bathtub, firmly grasping her gun in her hand to use when they break into the bathroom next.

A few minutes had gone by when Cammie heard the hiss of the canister releasing the gas stop, and the hotel room door opened and footsteps entered the room. She heard deep voices come from the main room, and could barely make out "in the bathroom" over the loud buzz of the fan. She heard the bathroom doorknob jiggle, so she attempted to raise the gun towards the door, but the gas had made her muscles weak and her arms shaky.

There was a loud bang on the door as they tried to barge in, but the door's wimpy twist-lock somehow held. Cammie braced herself for their second attempt, which would most likely succeed in breaking down the door. But the second attempt never came, and instead Cammie was startled to hear a barrage of bullets firing outside the door. There was too much yelling and shooting and crashing that Cammie couldn't make sense of what was going on out there.

Another minute passed, and there was a huge crack as someone kicked in the bathroom door. Cammie struggled to raise her gun up to chest level, but when she saw that it was Zach she let her arm fall to her side, her gun clattering on the tile floor.

Cammie dropped the washcloth away from her face and rasped out, "Zach.."

He stood in the doorway with what appeared to be somebody else's blood splatter on his suit, but otherwise looked unscathed. Cammie noticed he let out a nearly inaudible sigh of relief once he realized that she was still (somewhat) breathing. She was sitting in the corner of the bathroom, slumped against the tub and working hard to stay conscious.

Zach immediately tucked his gun into the waistband of his pants and rushed to her side, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her up into a standing position. Zach knew that any other day she would be stubbornly refusing his help, but the drowsy way she blinked her eyes told him that the high dose she inhaled had left her beyond denying help. Cammie's legs buckled underneath her, and she grabbed onto Zach for support.

"C'mon, Cammie, let's get you out of here," he reassured her, swooping his arm under her legs and lifting her up bridal-style in her gown. She held on to Zach by the lapel of his suit jacket and rested her head against his chest.

He carried her out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, where Grant was standing over two bodies laying in pools of blood on the floor. Bukavitsky's body remained on the bed where Cammie shot him, and Cammie bet that the other two men were also KGB. But suddenly Bukavitsky's words popped into Cammie's mind: they're the CoC. Who were they, and what did they want with her?

Zach continued to carry Cammie into the hallway, past the elevator doors where two other CIA agents were standing guard. They had completed the mission and secured the area, so now more agents were on their way to help clear the scene and document the mission. "There's an air evac team on the roof, ready to get you to a safe house," Zach informed her. There was indeed another CIA agent holding the door for them to the stairwell that would take them to the roof.

Cammie's head lolled back in the crook of Zach's muscular arms, but she fought the feeling of passing out and forced her head up. She had to let Zach know about the people who were after her, because the sooner they could have the CIA investigating the CoC, the better.

Zach looked down at her, noticing that her breathing had become more labored. She wet her lips with her tongue then weakly told him, "Th- The C-"

"Save your breath, Cam. We're so close," Zach coaxed her. Zach carried Cammie up the stairs two at a time, in a rush to get her to the medical equipment that he knew was aboard the helicopter. They finally reached the rooftop, and the beating wind of the helicopter blades wildly blew Cammie's brunette curls.

A CIA agent in the helicopter slid open the fuselage door for them, and Zach lifted Cammie up and inside, setting her carefully on the floor against the wall. Cammie kept lolling her head down and back up as she fought to stay conscious. She had to tell Zach what she learned from Bukavitsky.

Meanwhile, Zach was madly searching through an overhead compartment full of medical supplies. He grabbed an oxygen mask and kneeled down next to Cammie, taking her cheek in his hand to lift her face up at him. His eyes gave her a look that said she would be okay as he gently raised the oxygen mask up to her mouth. "Breathe this in," he told her. "How long were you exposed to the nerve gas?"

Cammie used the last ounce of her strength to grab Zach's wrist, forcing him to wait to put the mask on her for a second. "No," she said weakly, so he paused, allowing Cammie to barely choke out, "CoC... after me..." before losing all consciousness.


	9. Safe House

Cammie's eyelashes fluttered open as she woke to find herself in a dark bedroom. She was laying in a plush queen sized bed, and turned her head on the pillow to notice a window nearby on her left. Cammie stretched her arm out from under the covers, grabbed the thick curtains, and yanked them aside. A bright stream of sunlight radiated through the window, causing her to squint as a headache immediately began pounding her head.

The sunlight let her get a better view of her room: the walls were painted a deep navy blue, her bed had tall bedposts from which white gauzy fabric was draped, and there was dark mahogany furniture decorating the space like a luxurious cabin in the woods. Cammie slightly sat up in bed to peer out the window and all she saw were trees, thus confirming her 'cabin in the woods' theory. She also seemed to be on the second floor.

Her whole body ached, but she knew she didn't have all day to lay in bed. She forced herself to stand up, finally noticing that she was still dressed in her satin olive green gown from the mission. Her memories of that night all came rushing back and hit her like a brick, making her sit back down on the bed just to process it all for a minute.

She remembered Zach's words from when he was carrying her out of the hotel room where she was ambushed: " _There's an air evac team waiting for you on the roof, ready to get you to a safe house._ "

Once again, Cammie looked around the room she was in. The cabin must be a CIA safe house, which meant that it must also be stocked with anything and everything one would need to survive in the middle of nowhere for quite some time. She stood up and headed to the walk-in closet, throwing open it's heavy wooden door.

The closet came fully equipped with both men's and women's CIA field apparel; the men's clothing on the left and women's on the right, with a full-sized mirror standing at the end of the closet. Cammie immediately stripped out of her dress and selected black athletic leggings, a grey wide-necked sweater, and white sneakers. The whole closet was pretty monochromatic.

She did not want to waste any time showering or getting comfortable until she could find Zach and figure out what had happened during the time she was unconscious. She walked out of the bedroom directly into a long hallway. It had an ornate rug that trailed all the way down the hallway, covering the hardwood floors and silencing her footsteps.

Cammie continued down the white hall, passing a bathroom and walking up to the top of a staircase. Cammie paused at the top of the staircase and looked down to the other end of the hallway, where there appeared to be two doors for another bedroom and bathroom suite. Cammie finally noticed the smell of bacon frying wafting up the staircase, so she followed it.

Down the semi-spiral staircase, Cammie entered the spacious living room which also flowed into the kitchen. It was a wide open area with high ceilings, and large windows overlooking the forest. Judging from the color of the light, it was around late afternoon. There were two big leather couches sitting in front of the stone fireplace with a wide coffee table between them.

The kitchen was very restaurant-like with white tile and black appliances, and had four stools placed around a large kitchen island. The tabletop of the island had folders, papers, and photos sprawled across it. Zach stood with his back to the island, facing the stovetop.

Cammie was frozen in the living room, staring at Zach's back and shoulder muscles rippling under his tight white tee as he flipped the bacon over in the frying pan. She eventually caught herself biting her lip, and quickly shook her head to snap out of her daze. She obviously couldn't deny his damn good looks; but Cammie constantly had to remind herself that relationships in the workplace, especially in _their_ line of work, could only lead to a conflict of interest... And Cammie knew that first-hand.

Cammie finally decided to keep walking towards the kitchen, and Zach turned around at the sound of her footsteps. "You and your breakfast food," Cammie joked with him, having a seat on a stool and casually leaning her elbows on the counter. She peered over at what he was cooking: bacon, eggs, and cinnamon toast.

"Cammie," Zach grinned, his green eyes twinkling, "How're you feeling?"

"Pretty shitty," she replied honestly. As she said that, Zach abandoned the food sizzling on the stove and retrieved a jug of orange juice from the fridge. He poured a tall glass and placed it in front of Cammie.

"Well you've been out for almost all of today," he explained, "You need to hydrate and get some food in you."

Cammie grabbed the glass and took a long sip as Zach returned to the stove, placing the last of the sizzling bacon and eggs on a plate. He also grabbed a second plate from out of the cabinets for Cammie, now that she was awake. He set the two plates of food on the kitchen island for them and took a seat on a stool across from Cammie.

She picked up a slice of buttered cinnamon toast and took a bite, despite her lack of appetite. The remaining chloral hydrate in her system was making her feel weak and somewhat nauseous, but she tried to take Zach's advice by getting some nutrients in her system.

"What's all this?" Cammie asked as she placed her fork back down on her plate after only taking a couple bites of scrambled eggs. Zach, who had already eaten half of his meal, glanced at the paperwork strewn across the table.

"I've been working on this ever since last night when you told me about the CoC," he started. He picked up a manilla file and slid it across the table to Cammie. "I printed off some hard copies of those surveillance photos you've already seen of the KGB members - well, CoC members - who have been following you. That file folder includes their personal and professional backgrounds, including all aliases they've used as well."

Zach motioned his hand at all the other papers surrounding them. "And all this information goes into extreme detail about all of their past missions and who they were in contact with on such missions. I've been trying to go through it all to find some connection between them, but no luck so far."

Cammie flipped open the folder and began looking through the profiles of the CoC members once again. She furrowed her brow and asked, "Agent Bukavitsky told me the CoC was recruiting KGB agents to come after me specifically... Do we have any idea why?"

Zach took a hand and rubbed the stubble on his jawline in frustrated confusion. "That's yet another thing we don't know. I'm hoping once we find the connection between how they were all recruited, and by whom, that we can find that out. The problem is that none of them have worked any of the same missions together, and I can't find any connection in their past training either."

With that, Zach arose from his seat and carried his dishes to the sink. "I need to go for a shower now; I've been working on this all day," he excused himself. He turned away from the sink and looked at Cammie, who had also stood up from her seat to lean over the mess of paperwork to get a better look of where she should start researching. She pulled a hair tie off of her wrist and quickly tied up her hair into a messy bun high on her head, something Zach knew she liked to do when she was concentrating hard at work.

A few wisps of hair floated out of her bun and down to her slender neck. That image immediately caused a memory to come crashing to the forefront of his mind.

 _Flashback_

 _Zach walked with a purpose down the long hotel-like hallway of one of the CIA buildings where agents were stationed between missions. He had just returned to the United States from Salamanca, Spain, after having completed an assassination of a North Korean diplomat who was visiting the country. While the assassination itself was a bit more challenging than some of the others he's had in the past, the rest of the mission was rather boring._

 _Although the Old Zach would have spent his time between mission objectives by entertaining himself by drinking plenty of foreign alcohol as well as flirting with and fucking international women, over the past year there had come to be only one girl that preoccupied his thoughts at all times of day._

 _Zach finally reached the room he was looking for and knocked a couple times. He could hear footsteps behind the door making their way towards him, causing a smirk to appear on his face in anticipation. The door swung open, revealing Cammie standing in her doorway wearing her lounge clothes that consisted of tight athletic shorts and a CIA-issued tank top that had snuck up a bit to reveal a sliver of her midriff. Despite her hair being tied up into a high ponytail and no makeup at all, Zach still thought she looked absolutely gorgeous._

 _"Zach!" she exclaimed with a wide smile on her face, at the same time he cockily asked, "Miss me, Gallagher Girl?"_

 _Before the door was even shut behind him, Zach had already cupped her face in his hands and pulled her in for a kiss. It started out gentle, but very quickly became more passionate as they hungrily tried to bring themselves even closer together. They hadn't seen each other for about 2 weeks. Cammie's hands gripped his black CIA-issued t-shirt, and later moved up to entangle her fingers in his hair._

 _Zach's hands dropped from her face, running all along her body and down to her thighs. He grabbed behind each leg and easily hoisted Cammie into the air; she instinctively wrapped her legs around him and, without breaking their kiss, he carried her further into her room. There was a table with papers spread across it, which Zach headed straight for._

 _With one hand holding Cammie around the waist, the other brushed all the papers off the tabletop, causing them to flutter down to the floor. "Hey!" Cammie scolded, finally breaking from their kiss. But she giggled, letting Zach know she wasn't too upset with him._ _"I was preparing for my Cordoba debriefing!"_

 _He set her down on the table but her legs remained wrapped around him, keeping him close. "Oh, were you?" Zach teased. He gently pulled on her ponytail, which made her slightly tilt her head back to expose more of her neck._

 _Zach's head dipped down and he laid a trail of kisses going up her neck, right next to her jugular. Cammie involuntarily gasped, closing her eyelids to enjoy the feeling while raking her nails through his hair and down to his back._

 _End Flashback_

Zach quickly shook his head to rid his mind of the sound of Cammie's gasping. He shouldn't be bringing up old memories of them together when their real focus should stay on their mission at hand. He knew just how complicated their relationship could make things, but it was hard not to think about the temptation now that they were working in such close proximity with each other once again.

He walked out of the kitchen and upstairs without another glance at Cammie, who remained looking over the documents on the kitchen table. After pouring over the paperwork for several minutes, Cammie decided she would need to retrieve her CIA laptop from her bedroom so she could scan the CIA database for more information.

She, too, headed upstairs and was walking down the hallway to her room when she heard a door open behind her. Although she knew it was Zach, she still felt the need to glance behind her. But the second she did, she instantly regretted it.

Zach was exiting his bathroom with only a white towel wrapped around his waist. One hand held up the towel while his fingers from his other hand brushed backwards through his wet hair. Cammie immediately looked away, but had to do a double take in order to take in his solid pecs and chiseled abs that were still slightly covered in drops of moisture from the steamy bathroom.

Zach quietly smirked at her, thus spurring Cammie into action. She spun around, picked up her pace, and went into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. She didn't realize she had been holding her breath until she let out a huge sigh, and she slumped her back against the door.

 _Oh god,_ she groaned, placing her hand on her forehead. _I'm in so much trouble._


End file.
